Brown/green shiny beetles on Rosemary - ?

[Pip1968]

As titled. About five weeks ago we had a constant infestation of our potted Rosemary. Pretty much on a daily basis I was squashing the beetles which were eating all the green leaves on the shrub.

The beetles were a little smaller than a Ladybird and appeared to be almost like a metallic brown/bronze and mid green colour. I have never seen these before. Are they a native species not often seen and spurred on by the hot weather - ??

Anyone else had them?

Pip

[Miocene]

Their name escapes me, but we've got them in our garden - they're native to this country. We've also got a load of stag beetles too, which are a tad bigger!

[Pip1968]

I do not mind Stag beetles as, as far as I know they are not destructive and also not often seen these days. Actually I wonder if Stag beetles are protected - ?

Thank you for the reassurance on those other buggers.

Pip

[otolith]

They are, funnily enough, rosemary beetles.

[otolith]

(and they aren't native to the UK, they arrived in the 90's)

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=555

[Pip1968]

Very interesting Otolith. Thank you very much for that.

More unchecked immigration then.

Pip

[Some Gump]

I love a good Daily mail interpretation.
So, who are we blanming? Thatcher? Blair?

[Miocene]

Ahh, I was thinking of another beetle.

Had a check and stag beetles are a protected species... so our freeloading residents could well hamper our wishes to change our front garden fairly considerably. Great.

[otolith]

As for the stag beetles - just give them a nice pile of rotting wood somewhere out of the way and they'll be happy!

[mr_spock]

We had these, and expected the Rosemary to die. The only solution AFAIK is to get a dust sheet under it and shake them off, then pick off any remaining. Our Rosemary is now huge and needs pruning!

[Simpo Two]

Some Gump said:

So, who are we blanming? Thatcher? Blair?

The EU always works for me. Blair a close second. Muslims third.